A mom for any occasion
By Carol Reeves
Ilene Barlow has seen practically everything, but the Mother of the Year never stops learning
Ilene Barlow is a talented musician, a longtime Hewlett-Packard employee and a two-time cancer survivor, but she believes her greatest accomplishment in life is being a mother.
With 10 children and 20 grandchildren, Barlow has hosted numerous birthday parties, attended countless athletic events and sat through far more recitals than most moms since she and her late husband, an engineer with HP, transferred from the Bay Area to Corvallis in 1976.
Recently Barlow was awarded the title Mother of the Year by the Oregon chapter of American Mothers Inc. One of her sons nominated her for the award, and winning it makes her eligible for the national title to be announced at AMI’s annual conference next month.
AMI is a 70-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the moral and spiritual foundations of families through mentoring programs, online resources and service projects, Barlow explained.
One of the things she hopes to share with other mothers in Oregon is “how important it is to constantly be in a learning mode through reading, teaching classes or learning from others.”
Active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as a piano and organ teacher, Barlow was also a 4-H and Boy Scouts volunteer while her children were growing up.
All of the Barlow children attended Hoover Elementary School, Cheldelin Middle School and Crescent Valley High School. Now most of them have families of their own and have moved away, to Washington, Arizona and Hawaii. One daughter lives in Albany and one of her sons lives in Portland. Two others attend college in Idaho and Utah.
The key to being a good mother is “you have to really love being with your children,” Barlow says.
“I really don’t think this award is just about me. It’s about honoring all mothers. I just get to be a spokesman to promote the value of motherhood throughout the state of Oregon,” she said.
Carol Reeves covers religion for the Gazette-Times.
Ilene Barlow
Age: 62.
Residence: Corvallis.
Occupation: Change management coordinator at Hewlett-Packard.
Education: 1962 graduate of North Cache High School; attended Utah State University.
Family: Husband Elwood Barlow (deceased); five daughters and four sons, ages 23 to 39 (the couple’s oldest daughter, Rochelle, died from meningitis at age 17 in 1987); 20 grandchildren.
Misc.: Named Oregon’s Mother of the Year by American Mothers Inc.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2007/04/08/news/focus/afocus01_barlow.txt
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Beauty of Mormon Women
By my BYU philosophy professor, Truman G. Madsen
My wife and I were interviewed a time ago by the very man who interviewed President
Hinckley, Mike Wallace. We were at the open house of Manhattan Temple. At some point in
our chat with him (by the way, he has great regard for President Hinckley), he said something
like this, looking at my wife, “Why are Mormon women so lovely?” We learned later that he has
not had a happy married life; he’s had four wives (not simultaneously). Before Ann could
answer, I was thinking of Parley P. Pratt, and I said, “It’s the best-kept beauty secret in the
world. It is the Spirit of God.” Parley P. Pratt says, “It contributes to beauty of face, form, and
feature.”
Then he turned to Ann, and she said, “It’s fidelity.” That’s a great answer. She had in
mind fidelity in the sense of honoring and keeping our covenants with Christ, but also honoring
our covenants with each other: fidelity in marriage. And also faithfulness in marking and
walking the path that Christ has laid out for us. That does make a difference, even in our
physical appearance.
I testify that that is so. I believe that in the Church itself not everyone is aware of how
conspicuous that beauty and that light is in the eyes and faces of the faithful, but those who have
the same spirit recognize it. Jesus said once, “My sheep know my voice and my sheep know
me” (see John 10:27) I suggest to you that the Lord’s sheep know his other sheep and recognize
when he is at work in their lives and they have the Spirit. That is a temple outcome. It comes
with worship and honoring in the sanctuary.
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:0mxNwNp--nsJ:www.trumanmadsen.com/media/FoundationsofTempleWorship.pdf+truman+madsen%2Bresurrection&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=safari
My wife and I were interviewed a time ago by the very man who interviewed President
Hinckley, Mike Wallace. We were at the open house of Manhattan Temple. At some point in
our chat with him (by the way, he has great regard for President Hinckley), he said something
like this, looking at my wife, “Why are Mormon women so lovely?” We learned later that he has
not had a happy married life; he’s had four wives (not simultaneously). Before Ann could
answer, I was thinking of Parley P. Pratt, and I said, “It’s the best-kept beauty secret in the
world. It is the Spirit of God.” Parley P. Pratt says, “It contributes to beauty of face, form, and
feature.”
Then he turned to Ann, and she said, “It’s fidelity.” That’s a great answer. She had in
mind fidelity in the sense of honoring and keeping our covenants with Christ, but also honoring
our covenants with each other: fidelity in marriage. And also faithfulness in marking and
walking the path that Christ has laid out for us. That does make a difference, even in our
physical appearance.
I testify that that is so. I believe that in the Church itself not everyone is aware of how
conspicuous that beauty and that light is in the eyes and faces of the faithful, but those who have
the same spirit recognize it. Jesus said once, “My sheep know my voice and my sheep know
me” (see John 10:27) I suggest to you that the Lord’s sheep know his other sheep and recognize
when he is at work in their lives and they have the Spirit. That is a temple outcome. It comes
with worship and honoring in the sanctuary.
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:0mxNwNp--nsJ:www.trumanmadsen.com/media/FoundationsofTempleWorship.pdf+truman+madsen%2Bresurrection&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=safari
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)